Saratoga News

Letters & Opinions

Speak Out

Volunteers working
hard in the Village

Shannon Burkey wrote a great article in last week's Saratoga News (" 'Sleepy' Saratoga Village may be waking up") about the revitalization of the Village, but she left out one fact that I had hoped would be included. We are the only town in the Silicon Valley that has so many volunteers working to re-energize our historic Village.

Volunteers such as Laurel Perusa, Loren Cook, Ron Pisani, Elaine Simpson, Karen Grebene, Teresa Mills, Bob Rayl, Dayle Moore and Lori Paxton spend hours making the Village beautiful with flowers. Countless others have adopted the 67 treewells and hanging baskets. Watering them in the summer can be quite tedious.

Doug Desmond delivers free dirt and fertilizer. Denny Alf, Karen Colson and many more bring us flowers from their gardens to put in the Village. Rick Ratra buys us pots to plant. Thi Zambetti has designed a gorgeous brochure of Village shops coming out this week.

Brian Berg and Paul Hernandez work to keep our listserve up and running. Donna Guldiman, Lynda Anderson and Connie Mitchell plan events for all to enjoy as do Tat Blesch, Judy Coulter, Emily Lo, Alice Chiou, Katherine Tseng and John Marian. Their enthusiasm and creativity bring joy to our citizens as they plan and execute monthly events in the Village.

These volunteers and many more unsung heroes that I have not listed account for much of the success of current Village life. Saratoga thanks them for their untold, unpaid hours working to make our Village thrive and be successful. I have not heard of any other community doing what our community is doing and I am very proud of all of these volunteers. They demonstrate their love of Saratoga and the desire for their historic Village to succeed.

Jill Hunter

Lomita Avenue

Jill Hunter is a member of the Saratoga City Council.

Saratoga will
never be Dover

The study of evolution is a scientific pursuit in which human beings look at the natural world without ideological preconceptions and use the evidence they collect to piece together the immense puzzle of the Earth's diverse biological environment. This study has gone on since before the time of Darwin, and it will never stop. From facts learned through observation and testing, conclusions are drawn, and the science advances to more observation and testing. Observation, testing, observation, testing. That is science. If one teaches science, there is no other responsible way to teach than this.

The only competing idea to the origin of life in the universe being a natural process explained by natural laws is the theory of a supernatural being having done so. Of course, the idea that a disembodied, elderly white man with a flowing beard created the Earth 5,000 years ago is unsupported by any observable scientific evidence. The reason that Biblical literalists hate evolutionary science so much is that it undermines all of their preconceived assertions that have only come to them through a process of "revelation" by imaginary ghosts. Since religious "revelation" cannot in any way be considered "scientific," it is therefore inappropriate to teach in a science class.

Wesley I. Ferguson ("Is it education, or is it indoctrination?", letters, June 5) and his friends are proponents of the "wedge" strategy lately employed by the Christian Right in America. The goal of the "wedge," as implied by its name, is to pry apart, in very slight, seemingly innocuous symbolic increments, separation of church and state when it comes to teaching science in American schools. The ultimate goal of the "wedge" is to shore up their preposterous idea of a fictional character creating the universe, the Earth and (most absurdly) America. Recently, the "wedge" and its utterly discredited concept of "Intelligent Design" was handed a resounding defeat in Tammy Kitzmiller, et al. v. Dover Area School District, et al., by Judge John Jones III (a Republican judge appointed by George W. Bush), who in his decision characterized the arguments of the anti-evolution Dover school board as "breathtakingly inane."

I am confident that Saratoga will never be so retrograde as Mr. Ferguson, the Discovery Institute, the Wedge and their ilk desire.

William Lorton

Los Angeles

William Lorton is a graduate of the Saratoga High School class of 1988